


i'm here waiting (if you want it back)

by uselessphillie



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sadness, Sharing Clothes, but surrounded by fluff i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 21:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14341377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uselessphillie/pseuds/uselessphillie
Summary: He thought it would get easier. Thought they would get older and more settled and that the ache in his chest he feels when Dan’s not around would eventually subside.or, three times phil finds himself in dan's closet while he's missing him





	i'm here waiting (if you want it back)

**Author's Note:**

> seeing phil in the vetements hoodie did something to me and i'm not even sorry. this is self-indulgent.

_ July 2015 _

The thing about not actually being one person means that sometimes they do things alone. Sometimes they take separate projects and make separate commitments and that’s okay. Sometimes Dan gets on a redeye flight to Germany and Phil wakes up in cold sheets, and that feels less okay, in the moment.

It’s not cold though, not really. July is hot and unending and Phil decides that he’s allowed to spend the day in just his pants. And the next day, and the day after that. No one’s around to see him, anyway.

He thought it would get easier. Thought they would get older and more settled and that the ache in his chest he feels when Dan’s not around would eventually subside. 

Dan texts him a picture of a dog in the Berlin streets and Phil says  _ give him a pet from me _ .

Dan’s immediate response of  _ :(((  _ pretty much sums it up, he thinks.

The timer’s ticking away at the back of his mind as he crawls into bed on the fifth day, counting down the hours until Dan’s flight lands. Calculating how long the taxi ride will be from the airport, trying to remember how many steps their flat has. It’s early still, only half-ten, but Phil’s convinced himself that time speeds up while you’re sleeping.

There’s a hot breeze blowing through the open window but Phil’s still cold somehow, the usual radiator-like Dan-warmth a stark absence against the sheets.

An avalanche of clothes spills out of their closet, a remnant of the last-minute packing procedure Phil’s maniac boyfriend seems to prefer. Phil pulls himself out of bed, rummages around in the semi-darkness for the first t-shirt he can find. He holds it close to his face, trying to make out the pattern without his glasses.

(Dan had said  _ I’m wearing it ironically, you spoon _ and Phil had just smirked and asked if he fancied Zayn or Niall more.) 

It’s soft and worn through and smells faintly like Dan’s body wash, like he’d put it on only to change his mind and chuck it back into the closet. Phil pulls it over his head and climbs back into bed, laying directly in the middle so that there’s no chance he won’t wake when Dan gets back.

He’s hurtling towards unconsciousness when he hears Dan’s heavy footsteps on the landing, feels the dip in the mattress as Dan sits to take off his shoes. Warm arms wrap around him from behind, easily maneuvering Phil back over to his own side of the bed.  

Phil turns around, nudging a knee between Dan’s thighs. “Hi,” he tells the jut of Dan’s collarbones. “How was Germany?”

“I missed you.” 

Phil’s about to say  _ that doesn’t answer my question _ . But then again, maybe it does. He settles for  _ I missed you too _ and lets Dan pull the stupid One Direction shirt off of him. 

It’s too hot for clothes, anyway.

***

_ December 2017 _

Phil wonders if he’ll ever get to stop missing Dan on Christmas.

This year had been better than all the rest, with Dan travelling up north with him in the lead up to the holiday. It settles something in his heart to round the corner of the kitchen and see his mum and Dan sat at the breakfast nook together, sipping morning tea and laughing quietly. Kath pops up from her seat to make Phil a coffee, still mothering him after three decades. He lets her, sinks down in the chair across from Dan and props his feet up in Dan’s lap. 

He looks over at Dan, sleepy curls yet untamed and Christmas lights casting rainbows across his skin.

Phil feels overwhelmed with the thought of  _ it’s not fair _ .

He says  _ don’t go _ and Dan looks like he wants nothing more than to relent, rubs soft circles into Phil’s ankle. 

But Dan goes anyway, kisses the corner of Phil’s mouth and says  _ see you soon _ and  _ I’ll call you tonight _ and Phil wonders if it’s good or bad that it never seems to get any easier to say goodbye.

He wakes up to 18 texts from Dan, variations on a theme of  _ merry christmas phil  _ and  _ i love you _ and  _ i wish you were here  _ and  _ colin says hello _ and Phil thinks it should be illegal to feel this sort of heartache on Christmas.

Phil forces himself out of bed, making a beeline for his suitcase. He passes over a few of his jumpers for one that’s been folded carefully and hidden away at the bottom of his bag. 

Dan would kill him if he knew Phil had stolen it out of their laundry last week, sequestered it away just for this trip. He’d torn into Dan when it had arrived in the mail, outraged that his boyfriend could bear to drop 500 quid on a  _ jumper _ . But Phil had come to secretly love it, lured in by the truly superior cuddles provided by the soft black wool.

He slips the garment over his head, a barrier against the chill of the morning and the sadness in his heart.

Downstairs, Kath once again presses a warm mug into his hands. Coffee takes precedence in the Lester household, even more so than the gifts waiting under the tree. She eyes him carefully, running the fabric of his sleeve between her thumb and forefinger. “Is this new, Philip?”

He could tell the truth. There’s no penalty here, no risk, no hiding. It’s not a secret that he misses Dan, that he’s the only one here without his other half. 

“Yeah,” he chokes out instead, “it’s new.” He does his best to avoid her measured gaze. It’s a bad lie, and they both know it.

She pries the coffee out of his death grip, pulls him down by the shoulder and into her arms. He goes willingly, folds his long body in half around hers and does his best to suppress his tears. It doesn’t work.

It’s about more than a few days apart, it always is with them. 

It’s not missing Dan so much as it’s missing a piece of life that’s been stolen from them. 

Later, he folds the jumper back into the bottom of his suitcase. He’ll hang it up in Dan’s closet when they get home. 

***

_ April 2018 _

Phil should really get up. 

They’ve still got loads to do and just under two weeks to do it. They don’t usually work on Sundays, but he’d still spent the day playing catch up with tour emails, finalizing some decisions, on the phone with the Brazil venue for  _ ages _ trying to work out the all-consuming visa issues.

And so he’d laid down for just a second, just long enough to read through the live update texts Dan’s been sending him from the wedding. 

The ceremony is for a friend of a friend of a friend, someone Dan had gone to school with and who Phil had never bothered to meet. Dan had said  _ you can come if you want  _ but that conversation had been over before it even started, and they both knew it. 

Sometimes it’s still easier like this, with people who aren’t quite strangers but who definitely aren’t friends either. With month after month of very public appearances staring them in the face, Phil had opted to sit this one out.

Dan’s latest texts say  _ the cake is red velvet :( _ and  _ i’ll bring you a piece  _ and then  _ i’ll bring you two pieces i miss you _ .

There’s a familiar and heavy weight settling in his chest. He’s up and standing in front of Dan’s closet before he can worry too much about what it all means.

He rifles through the hangers, searching for something large and soft and good for cuddling. The Ventements hoodie catches his eye - Dan had insisted on him trying it on for their latest video, and it’s hanging up front and center in the closet. Phil hates the way it looks on him, if he’s being honest. He’s been warming up to black recently, but the hoodie dwarfs him and  _ really _ doesn’t match his aesthetic, if he even has one.

He thinks about how there’ll be room for Dan to fit both his arms up underneath it and tugs it on anyway.

There’s exhaustion seeping into his bones as he drags their duvet out into the lounge to wait for Dan. He queues up some  _ Bake-Off  _ reruns and lets himself drift for awhile. His laptop taunts him from where he’d abandoned it on the coffee table, and he’s just about to give in and resume his emailing when he hears Dan’s key turning in the lock.

Phil lowers the volume on the TV, snuggles down further into his blanket nest and feigns sleep. He doesn’t want to hear about the wedding, not tonight. He wants Dan under the blanket and in his arms - everything else can wait.

He cracks his eyes open just a sliver to watch Dan shuffle into the kitchen with what looks like a truly enormous container of cake, but closes them again quickly.  _ He’s sleeping _ .

Phil sees it in his mind’s eye, Dan folding long legs up under himself to sit on the floor next to the couch. There’s a few stray strands of hair tickling his forehead, and Dan reaches a hand up to brush them back into place. Phil can’t help but lean into the touch, effectively giving himself away.

Dan voice is soft and tired when he says  _ you’re such a bad liar, Phil _ and  _ make some room for me, you look warm _ . Phil presses himself into the back of the couch, lifts the edge of the duvet up. Dan curls himself into the empty space and exhales a sigh against Phil’s skin, sticks cold fingers up under the hem of his hoodie.  

The quiet envelopes them as they lie there, both of them far too big for it to be comfortable for very long. But for now it’s okay, for now Phil combs his fingers through Dan’s curls and listens to the gentle sounds of him decompressing from the day. 

Eventually, Dan says, “I thought you hated this jumper,” stretches up to press a kiss against Phil’s jaw.

Phil shuffles down so that more of Dan’s arms slip under the hem. “It has it perks,” he says, cups a sweater-pawed hand under Dan’s chin to kiss him more soundly. Dan is giggling into his mouth and pressing fingers more deliberately against his skin, and it’s incredible how easily Dan can erase the dullness Phil feels when they’re apart.

(They’ll be conjoined at the hip for the next five months, but he’ll pack some of Dan’s clothes anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> come shame me for my clothes sharing kink on tumblr: uselessphillie


End file.
